Influence

For today’s Tuesday Reading, we turn to an Adam Bryant interview of Brown University President Ruth J. Simmons which appeared in the December 3, 2011 NYTimes. IT Leaders Coach Greg Anderson called this interview – which can be found at <http://nyti.ms/tw4lR0> – to my attention. It seemed to be a particularly fitting way to begin the New Year.

Fundamentally, the column is President Simmons’ leadership journey. Some of the key lessons I found in the piece are:

Today’s Tuesday Reading “Nine Things Successful People Do Differently”was posted by Bloomberg BusinessWeek and originally from the Harvard Business Review blogs. The author is Hiedi Grant Halvorson, motivational psychologist and author of Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals.

Almost everyone of us has someone who routinely triggers us. It may be the cynic in your group. It could be someone who doesn’t listen. Or, someone who takes credit for your work. And the list is endless.

This week’s reading is a piece “What Steve Jobs Taught Me About Growth” by Nilofer Merchant. Merchant is a writer for the Harvard Business Review. This piece is part of the HBR Insight Center Growing the Top Line.

Luca Baiguni, Professor of Organizational Behavior and Personal Development at the Politecnico di Milano, was recently was in Barcelona on business and spent some time visiting the city. One of his must see places was the Sagrada Famìla, the basilica universally considered the masterpiece of Antoni Gaudì, the Spanish architect who lived from 1852 to 1926.

In the sports world, a “clutch” player performs best when the pressure is on. [See “Learning to be a ‘Clutch’ Leader” by Sean Silverstone, editor of HBS’s Working Knowledge newsletter.] In the thinking of Paul Sullivan, New York Times business columnist and author of “Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don’t,” the best example of a “clutch” person is the military leader – someone trained to make combat decisions with life or death consequences. [See, “How Cadets Learn to be ‘Clutch’,”.]

I found today’s Tuesday Reading in yesterday’s New York Times. Matt Richtel had a wonderful piece “Outdoors and Out of Reach, Studying the Brain” that reports on a five day trip by five neuroscientists plus Richtel, and a guide, rafting, hiking, and camping along the San Juan River in the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area in Utah.

Today’s Reading, “Never Duck the Tough Questions”, is an interview with Dawn Lepore, chair and CEO of Drugstore.com. The interview was conducted by Adam Bryant and originally appeared in the Corner Office column of the July 18, 2010 New York Times.

Dan Heath in today’s Reading – “Want Your Organization to Change? Put Feelings First” – points out that typically when we want people to change, we try to teach them something. Sounds good, right? WRONG! According to Heath and John Kotter, knowledge rarely leads to change.